


it’s so beautiful (when the boy smiles)

by polkadot



Category: Gymnastics RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Closeted Character, Coming Out, First Time, M/M, Olympics, Sports, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:47:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7922905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kenzo throws off Kohei’s groove, Oleg wooes him with free McDonald’s, and Kohei learns to let himself breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it’s so beautiful (when the boy smiles)

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : This is a work of fiction based on the public personas of public figures, and nothing is implied about the actual Kohei Uchimura, Oleg Verniaiev, or any other athlete mentioned.

When Kohei breezed into his room in the Olympic Village, carelessly dropping his credential, room key, and phone on top of the dresser on his way to the window – there was a beautiful sunset outside and no reason to have the curtains drawn – it took him a moment to register that he had indeed seen his roommate’s bare ass out of the corner of his eye.

“Kenzo,” he said, carefully, without turning his head, “tell me you don’t have a girl under your sheets.”

He’d asked to room with Kenzo. When the kid looked up to him with hero-worship in his eyes, it made Kohei nostalgic for eight years ago when _he_ was nineteen and in his first Olympics. Kenzo’s wide-eyed joy and upbeat nature relaxed him, and that was a good thing when your entire nation expected you to win both team and all-around, especially when lately you were feeling pretty much every single one of your twenty-seven years.

(Plus he'd thought that Kenzo and Ryohei deserved a break from each other. No one could possibly be less of a morning person than Ryohei, and Kenzo’s bouncy chirpiness had more than once raised Ryohei’s 7am temperature. Kohei, who liked mornings, could cope much better.)

He hadn't anticipated, however – and perhaps he should have – that rooming with a nineteen-year-old might come with extracurricular shenanigans. Particularly during off-days.

Kohei sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could’ve had his own room, if he’d asked. Verniaiev had his own room, he was sure. (Verniaiev could probably have asked to have all the rooms in his team’s suite, and the rest of his team would’ve happily bunked on the couches and floor in the common area.) “Kenzo?”

“Uh,” Kenzo said, muffled in the sheets. “You’re back early?”

“One of the interviews cancelled,” Kohei said. “Apparently their bus went in the wrong direction and they’re halfway to the athletics stadium. Anyway, I'll just - be going then.”

Engaging in small talk while there were naked people behind him was awkward, but again, it was his own fault for choosing to room with a nineteen-year-old. Hormones. He'd just get his stuff off the dresser and leave, keeping his eyes averted -

Except in the next moment it became a whole different kind of awkward, because someone was speaking in an undertone that Kohei couldn’t catch, but he was sure of two things: it was a guy, and it wasn’t Kenzo.

Kohei should have stayed facing front, but in his shock he ended up turning around and gaping at Kenzo (chastely covered to the waist by sheets) and a rumpled (but thankfully dressed) young man who was searching for something by the bed. 

Kenzo looked simultaneously terrified and defiant. 

“What were you thinking?” Kohei said, keeping his tone calm so as not to alarm Kenzo’s guest. He was obviously another athlete – his physique made that clear – and even seemed vaguely familiar, but Kohei had better things to do with his time than remember all the thousands of Olympians. 

Kenzo’s hands were white-knuckled on the bedspread. “He’s my boyfriend,” he said, quietly. “I thought you’d be out for hours. I missed him.”

“Your boyfriend?” Kohei said, disbelieving. 

He wasn’t someone who would care what Kenzo did in bed. He cared about Kenzo’s gymnastics, and the way Kenzo made them all laugh, and how Kenzo always seemed to know how to lighten the mood when they were tense. Kenzo’s twists took Kohei’s breath away, and his work ethic couldn’t be faulted; Kohei knew that when he gave up competing all-around, he’d hand the mantle over to capable hands. 

But Kohei also knew that were many, many people who _would_ care what Kenzo did in bed.

He knew very well.

“Kenzo,” he said, because Kenzo’s lips had gone tight, and he wasn’t meeting his eyes. “I don’t care. But you can’t be careless like this. If one of the team saw him – if one of the coaches came to check on us – “

“I’d say he was a friend,” Kenzo said, stubbornly. 

Kohei gave that the raised eyebrow it deserved. “Don’t throw your career away.”

Kenzo didn’t speak for a moment, staring at his hands, but then he said softly, “I don’t want gymnastics to be the only thing I have.”

It hit Kohei like the floor after a missed release, straight in the face, a body blow. 

After a moment of terrible silence, Kenzo’s boyfriend (who had from the looks of it finally found his credential under the bed) cleared his throat. “I’ll call you later,” he said to Kenzo, then to Kohei, “Sorry to surprise you like that. I know I didn’t make a good first impression, but you should know that I care about him and he’s important to me.”

Kohei, who had not been expecting fluent Japanese from the man (or for his own bluntness to be understood), mastered his surprise and nodded, a little stiffly. “He’s important to me too,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want him to waste his talent.”

“Is it wasting his talent to fall in love?” Kenzo’s boyfriend asked, quietly. “He’s still the same gymnast he was yesterday. And I’m risking just as much as he is.”

All Kohei could think of was, “He’s special.” He could remember like it was yesterday the day he met Kenzo, waist-high and precocious, or the day a babyfaced sixteen-year-old Kenzo came into the gym and started doing skills that Kohei had only just mastered himself, reeling them off like they were easy, while Kohei sat in the background and sulked. Gymnastics wasn’t supposed to be easy; and yet so many times Kenzo made it look like it was.

Kenzo’s boyfriend reached down to brush his fingers over Kenzo’s hair. “I know.”

As Kenzo looked up at his boyfriend, his cheeks coloring and his eyes soft, Kohei suddenly couldn’t be in that room any longer. “I’m going out,” he said, abruptly. “Text me –“ – _when he leaves_ – “later”. 

~//~

Eight years before, it had been Kohei who was nineteen and competing in his first Olympics. He’d never had time to think about anything except gymnastics before – and then Kim Dae-eun had walked into the practice gym in Beijing, and everything had changed.

Not that Kim had ever known. He’d been the veteran, the defending silver medalist in the all-around, far too absorbed in his own work to notice the length of Kohei’s covert glances. Kohei had tried to copy his focus, but it was as if all his previous disinterest had been turned on its head; he’d been excruciatingly aware of every move Kim made, every swing he took. The practice gym had become a minefield, as his crush threatened to distract him from his own preparation.

(Kohei still wondered sometimes if his disastrous pommel horse routine in the all-around had been at least partly due to that distraction. Kim had qualified for the final in third, Kohei in fourth, and so they had both been in the top rotation group; despite all his hard-trained focus, Kohei had been hyperaware of Kim at his shoulder, in his space. Had his attention not been divided, would he have fallen off the horse not once but twice, creating a deficit that despite his best effort turned out to be too large to overcome? But perhaps it had only been pommels, taking its due as it sometimes did; Kim, competing immediately after Kohei, had fallen as well, and he’d ended up finishing eleventh, far out of the medals. 

Kohei still wondered, nonetheless.)

Kohei had never considered telling Kim. Never considered what it would be like if the vivid imagination that had suddenly roared to life were to be an actual possibility. Never considered progressing from covert glances and furtive moments alone in the shower into trying to make an actual move. That hadn’t ever been an option. Just because he had discovered he was different didn’t mean that anything had _changed_ ; he had been a gymnast, first and foremost, and ‘gymnast’ and ‘gay’ had never been two things that could coexist.

Now Kohei took the elevator in a daze, letting himself think what it might have been like, if he had been as rash and reckless, as foolhardy and brave, as the kid upstairs.

~//~

The Rio sunset was a pretty one. Kohei walked slowly, his thoughts far away. 

He'd had attractions in the years since Beijing. Never with the same intensity as that first one, but perhaps he'd been subconsciously defending himself against similar distraction. As his dominance in the sport became entrenched, he had known that he could not afford to slip. With every year, every championship, every medal, his sporting legend increased. How could he give any of that up, simply to gratify his own desires? Far easier to shove those feelings away, push them down and use their frustrated tension to fuel his preparation. 

Greatness did not come without a price.

So Kohei had let himself look, sometimes. Epke’s tall power, flying high; Leyva’s cheeky grin; Chen’s strong, massive shoulders; Nguyen’s pretty face and intriguing tattoos; Dragulescu’s outsize charm; Deng’s sharp good looks and distinctive scar; and even, though he felt guilty every time, the shy curve of Ryohei’s smile.

But he had never done more than look.

“Kohei,” a voice said behind him, surprised and delighted, and Kohei suppressed a sigh. He could sometimes move about the Village unmolested, if there was a Bolt or a Nadal around to distract his fellow athletes, but it seemed tonight was not destined to be one of those times. “Pokemon Go?”

It wasn’t a random athlete with a phone and a “selfie please?” request. It was Verniaiev, casual and sunny-faced in his bright Ukrainian gear, carrying five McDonald’s bags. 

Kohei put a smile on his own face. That story about his ill-considered Pokemon Go saga with his phone company was never going to die. “No,” he said. “Not tonight. McDonald’s?”

Verniaiev grinned back, gesturing (carefully) with one of the bags. “They don't want cafeteria. I go to McDonald’s.”

It was Yamamuro’s fervent assertion that putting free McDonald’s in the athletes’ village was the best decision the Rio 2016 planning authorities had made. Kohei suspected that the majority of Olympians would agree, despite the long lines. How Verniaiev had got stuck with the McDonald’s run was a mystery – Kohei would have guessed they’d send one of the kids – but not enough of one that he wanted to strain his limited English. 

“You want some?” Verniaiev asked, that same open smile on his face, a twinkle in his eye.

Yesterday they had faced off on the podium and fought to the end, putting up six of their best routines and performing to their utmost. If Ukraine had the funding for a high bar coach, Kohei would probably have been relegated to silver; even as it was, Kohei had clung on to his title with only the very tips of his fingers, and Verniaiev had come within one stuck landing of wresting it away. 

Kohei wondered if he would be able to accept the result as well as Verniaiev, if it had gone the other way.

“OK,” he said, and felt his polite smile turning a little more real.

~//~

The common area in the Ukrainian team’s suite was chaotic. Discarded pieces of clothing peeked from underneath chairs, gym bags were haphazardly stacked along the walls, and one of the kids – the team was young and new enough that Kohei didn’t know all the names – was literally upside down, his knees hanging over the back of the sofa. 

A shout went up at their arrival, and Verniaiev waded in with good humor, handing the three bags he still held to Radivilov and pushing at the upside-down kid’s feet until he flipped upright. He was saying something in Russian or Ukrainian, loud and cheerful, and suddenly everyone in the room was looking at Kohei.

Kohei smiled and waved one of the bags he’d taken from Verniaiev. “Hello.”

Verniaiev came back to his side. “Igor,” he said, pointing to Radivilov. “Senya,” to the kid who’d been upside-down. “Vlad” – a dark-eyed teenager. “Maksim” – this one a blond, slightly older. “And Oleg,” he added, with a grin.

“Igor, Senya, Vlad, Maksim, Oleg,” Kohei said, with a nod for each of them. “Kohei.”

That got a laugh – obviously no one in this room needed a reminder of his name – and then Vlad said something incomprehensible and mock-plaintive that ended in “McDonald’s”. Kohei handed the bags he held to Senya, with a little bow.

Helping to bring McDonald’s admitted him to the group with no questions asked. Vlad was evicted from the best spot in front of the TV and placated with a burger, and Kohei and Oleg promptly installed in his place. (Kohei had given up calling him Verniaiev, even to himself; in this laughing casual crowd Oleg seemed more fitting. Besides, it was a lot simpler.) 

“FIFA?” Oleg asked, hopefully, and even though Kohei wasn’t very good, he allowed himself to be persuaded. 

As they got it set up – Senya stealing fries from Oleg’s bag when he wasn’t looking, and getting swatted by Igor for it – Kohei watched. It was a young group, boisterous and affectionate, with a bit of swagger. He could see the way the room oriented around Igor and Oleg, the older brothers; in some ways it reminded him of his own team, but in other ways it was entirely different. His team was fond of each other, full of team cohesion, but Kohei never quite stopped feeling set apart. One might expect it with Kenzo, hero-worship in his eyes, but even the others, all second-time Olympians, had never quite lost that last flicker of deference and awe.

This team had only two young veterans to balance out their three kids, and despite Oleg and Igor’s relative maturity, was one big pile of rambunctious puppies. 

“Gooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!” Vlad shouted, startling Kohei, because they hadn’t even started.

Oleg sighed, flopping down next to Kohei and slinging a casual arm across the back of the couch. “He want to be announcer.”

Kohei gave Vlad a thumbs-up, trying not to laugh.

~//~

After an hour, Kohei’s phone finally buzzed.

“I have to go now,” he told Oleg, who was jealously trying to protect the controllers from flying limbs. (Vlad and Senya were rolling around the floor in a play-quarrel over an umpiring decision, with Igor futilely trying to break them up.) “Kenzo.”

Oleg nodded, then stood up with the controllers, stepping over an outflung ankle. “I walk to elevator.”

The kids on the floor were preoccupied, now doing what sounded like Terminator impressions for some reason, so Kohei just waved goodbye to Igor and followed Oleg out of the common area to a messy, utilitarian bedroom that looked just like his own. 

“Sorry,” Oleg said, dumping the controllers he held on one of the beds. “(Incomprehensible),” which Kohei guessed meant something along the lines of “sorry for the mess”. 

Kohei waved a dismissive hand – Kenzo wasn’t the neatest of roommates, so his room probably wasn’t much better. It was dark outside now, and the lights of Rio sparkled in the night sky. “Beautiful,” he said in Japanese, crossing the room without thinking. 

Sometimes it was easy to get caught up in the competition and the drama, to focus so tightly on your own work that you forgot to breathe and take it all in. Kohei needed to breathe more often, he thought, looking out at the lights. His third Olympics, and not only was he Olympic champion again, so was his team. He literally had everything he had worked for and wanted for so long; he could take a moment to let go, to let Rio wash over him.

Oleg came up behind him, but Kohei hardly noticed. Would he still be around for Tokyo, he wondered, or was this the last time he would be able to call himself an Olympian? A fourth Olympics, at age thirty-one, was asking a lot out of his old bones. He’d almost surely have to give up all-around, become a specialist. Kenzo was nearly ready to take over all-around, to step up and become the new superstar for a new era. Kohei had never _not_ been the focus of his team, not since he was nineteen years old, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad; he’d have more time to breathe, someone else to help shoulder the pressure.

That was, if he even made it Tokyo as a specialist. There were no guarantees in gymnastics. Kohei had seen too many injuries, too many withered careers, to take anything for granted.

Looking out over Rio, he accepted that it might be the last time; and in accepting it, found serenity. He had one event final left, and it wasn’t for two days. He could let himself breathe.

He turned to smile at Oleg, full of contentment. 

“Pretty,” Oleg said, after a beat, with a small gesture to the lights.

Perhaps it was Kohei’s newly-restored equilibrium, after the disorienting Kenzo situation. Or perhaps it was the Kenzo situation itself, making him think about something he’d tried to forget. 

Whatever it was, when he'd turned he had caught the expression on Oleg’s face; and in that moment of silence, he had seen the way Oleg was looking at him, the same way he had looked at Kim eight years before.

Any other day, Kohei would have let the moment pass. He would have gone back to his team, and smiled at Oleg in competitions, and buried the memory the way he had buried everything like it over the years, in a part of his brain labeled “too complicated”. It would have been easy; he’d had a lot of practice. 

“Me?” he asked, keeping his mouth straight.

Oleg’s eyelashes flickered – and yes, he was close enough to see that, the changeable color of Oleg’s eyes and the sweep of his eyelashes. Kohei could see his indecision, the tension in his shoulders, as he tried to sort out his thoughts or his English – or both.

A day ago this man had nearly beaten him, something no one had done for years. He’d thrown everything he had down on the mat, turned in six beautiful routines – and then smiled and shrugged philosophically when he came up just short, accepting defeat with grace. He’d congratulated Kohei – had defended him to reporters when asked if the judges had favored their superstar. He wasn’t a kid, like Kohei had been when he pined after Kim. He was a two-time Olympian, at the top of his game and full of determination, and Kohei suddenly wanted him with all the pent-up frustration of eight long years.

“Kohei,” Oleg said, his tenor a rasp, neither committing nor denying, and yet betraying himself all the same.

Kohei lifted a hand to Oleg’s face, reckless at last, brushing the back of his knuckles down Oleg’s cheek, feeling the shudder of Oleg’s exhale in the caught space between them. 

“Oleg,” he said, and kissed him.

Oleg’s mouth opened underneath his, ready and warm, the breath hitching in his lungs.

Eight years late, Kohei thought dimly, and not a moment too soon.

Then, as Oleg’s hand tangled in his hair, he forgot everything except the man in his arms and the strong body pressed against his own.

~//~

It felt like ages, but could only have been a minute or two, before a crash just outside the door made them jump apart. Kohei felt like he’d just finished a floor routine, the air juddering in his lungs.

Oleg’s eyes were bright, his mouth kiss-stung. Kohei wanted to reach for him again, put his hands everywhere, push him up against the wall and press hungry kisses under his jawline until he shuddered. Eight years, all at once, and Kohei wanted, he wanted everything.

Oleg said, “Room is Senya’s too,” his voice a croak. It took Kohei several seconds to process, because Oleg had also begun rubbing his thumb against the inside curve of Kohei’s wrist, and if he thought Kohei was going to be able to understand English while he did that, he was greatly mistaken.

“Fuck Senya,” Kohei said, as clearly as possible, and slid his free hand under Oleg’s shirt.

Oleg was laughing, and it made Kohei want him more, the way his eyes crinkled, the way his abs trembled under Kohei’s hand. “You say fuck?”

Kohei kissed him again, quick dirty press of mouths, nipping his bottom lip. 

But there were voices in the common area, coming closer, and Kohei had no desire to be the one caught, the one making guilty excuses. He stepped back, reluctantly, clasping his hands together to keep them from betraying him. “Elevator.”

“Yeah,” Oleg said, his voice still wrecked, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

Luckily Oleg’s room had a door to the outside corridor, so they escaped without having to see the team. Kohei felt like what they had been doing was written all over his face; he could barely look at Oleg. 

This was why he had never done this before, he told himself. This distraction – this humming under his skin – this ridiculous joy trying to burst out of his ribcage, beating an erratic flutter. He hadn’t known what it would be like, but he had known it would upset his ordered world, throw everything into chaos; even now, he wanted to throw caution to the wind, just for one more kiss, one more sharp pull of Oleg’s fingers in his hair. 

But after three Olympics, had he perhaps earned this?

Oleg kissed him in the elevator, pinned him against the side and pressed fever-close, and Kohei closed his eyes and held on.

When the elevator stopped, he walked out without looking back, because if he looked back he would have gone back. 

~//~

“Are you mad at me?” Kenzo asked in the darkness, his voice small.

It was late, and Kohei was exhausted. He’d returned to find the lights out and Kenzo already in bed; he’d taken a shower (and jerked off in an embarrassingly short amount of time to the memory of Oleg’s mouth against his) and slid under his own sheets as quietly as possible. And _now_ Kenzo wanted to talk about this.

But the darkness was freeing in a way the cold light of day might not have been. “No,” he said, his eyes closed. “I’m worried, but not mad.”

“Worried,” Kenzo said, the repetition tentative.

“You’re my brother. Of course I worry.”

He’d met Kenzo when Kenzo barely reached his waist, a bright-eyed kid who could already do crazy tumbling tricks. Now Kenzo was a man, turning twenty next week. Forever his kid brother – but old enough to make his own choices and risk his own risks, whether Kohei worried or not.

“It’s not that I’m less committed to gymnastics,” Kenzo said, as if anyone could ever question his commitment to gymnastics, the kid who’d become World Champion at seventeen. “It’s just that… I want him too.”

Kohei knew the feeling. He had a momentary flash of Oleg in his bed, laughing up at him, pulling his shirt off over his head –

“Is that selfish?”

For all his self-assurance on the gymnastics floor, and all his reckless stubbornness earlier, this was a kid reaching out for assurance. Kohei was suddenly fiercely glad that it was him who had been rooming with Kenzo, not Ryohei or Yusuke or Yamamuro. Perhaps they would have reacted well, but perhaps they wouldn’t have. And Kenzo shouldn’t be hurt. Not today.

“Probably,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong.”

He heard Kenzo suck in a breath, loud in the darkness. “You’re not going to make me give him up?”

“Could I?” Kohei asked. 

“I thought you would tell me to choose him or gymnastics.”

Kohei stared at the ceiling, which he couldn’t see, and saw the brightness of Oleg’s eyes. “I chose gymnastics, and I’m not sure now if I was right.”

It took a moment, but then Kenzo said slowly, “You chose gymnastics over having a girlfriend?”

“I chose gymnastics over everything,” Kohei said, his fingers remembering the hard curve of Oleg’s shoulders. “And maybe I could have had both.”

~//~

The next morning he watched Oleg during practice, watched his handstands and his planches and the power of his legs as he thundered down the vaulting track, watched his laughter and the arch of his eyebrows and the way he cheered Igor’s new vault, free and fierce.

“If Igor lands that cleanly, he’ll get a massive score,” Kenzo said next to him, misinterpreting his attention. “I wish the D on my second vault was higher.”

“If he doesn’t land it cleanly, he could die,” Kohei retorted, more shortly than he meant to, but his focus was elsewhere. “Can you get me Verniaiev’s number?”

Kenzo blinked at him, obviously judging his laziness – Oleg was right over there – but also obviously not wanting to be impertinent. “It’s in my phone. I’ll text it to you.”

“You have it already?”

“I have everyone’s numbers,” Kenzo said, grinning. “And Twitters, and Facebooks, and Instagrams…”

He’d forgotten how much of a social butterfly Kenzo was. “Good,” he said, and went to stretch his tired body, because tomorrow was the floor final even if it felt like he wrenched his back during the all-around.

After practice, Kenzo was back at his elbow. “I sent it to you. Lunch?”

Kohei looked at him, at his young hopeful smiling face, and felt his own expression soften. “How about you get lunch with – ” He waited.

Kenzo didn’t try to pretend he didn’t understand. “Aska,” he said, his eyes dropping, his smile turning bashful. 

“Aska,” Kohei repeated. “And afterwards go watch some sport.”

“What sport?”

“Any sport.” Delicacy was not working. “I want the room for a couple of hours.”

Kenzo’s head whipped up, his eyebrows narrowing. He obviously wanted to ask why, but he held it back heroically. “Okay.”

After he bounded off, Kohei pulled up the translation app on his phone.

~//~

Kohei had barely shut the door and flipped the deadbolt before Oleg pushed him against it, kissing him with an urgency that spread into Kohei’s veins like wildfire. Kohei laughed into the kiss, light-headed with the goodness of the fizzing under his skin, and Oleg made a growling sound in his throat that quite honestly should have been illegal, because Kohei couldn’t handle how much it made him crazy.

“Sorry,” Oleg said against his lips, when they came up for air. “Your mouth…”

Kohei squeezed his shoulder, feeling the unyielding muscle there.“Not sorry.”

He was uncharacteristically nervous. Constant pressure situations had more or less eradicated his nerves over the years, but now, with Oleg pressed up against him, solid and strong, they reappeared. Last night had been all impulse, reckless and intoxicating; today felt real.

But then Oleg smiled, and the afternoon light caught his eyes. “Not sorry,” he agreed, and let more of his weight rest against Kohei, dipping his head to kiss behind Kohei’s ear.

Kohei closed his eyes and gathered his courage, though he was having trouble concentrating. There was something he wanted to do, and they didn’t have forever. “Oleg,” he said, his voice cracking embarrassingly when Oleg did something to his ear that made his pulse jump.

“Yeah?” Oleg said, low and against his skin, almost ruining Kohei’s resolve to extricate himself. He made a mental note to revisit the ‘pinned to the door’ position at a later date.

Pushing against Oleg’s shoulders made him step back, his eyebrow arching. The expression looked good on him; wry amusement sat well on his face, especially when his eyes were still laughing. “You don’t like?” Oleg asked. “I think you like.”

Kohei bit his lip, and Oleg’s eyes followed. “I like,” he said. “But.”

“But?” Oleg asked, and Kohei watched his eyes widen, his breath catch as Kohei dropped to his knees.

He’d never done this before, but he’d dreamed it, daydreamed it, jerked off to it in the shower when he could ignore his desire no longer. Now he hooked his fingers in the waistband of Oleg’s sweatpants, and held Oleg’s gaze as he started to pull them down.

“Shit,” Oleg breathed, his hand falling to Kohei’s shoulder. “Shit –” and a stream of reverent-sounding Russian that Kohei didn’t understand, but thought probably meant that Oleg was a fan of this idea. 

Kohei smiled, covering his nervousness with an air of mastery. In his experience, affecting an air of calm assurance carried you past many a difficulty. He traced the cut of Oleg’s hips with his thumb, drawing it out when it made Oleg jump and swear again. But to be crass – and Kohei found that he loved it, being able to be crass, not being the perfect gracious mature superstar – there was a hard dick right in front of his eyes for the first time, and there was only so long he could resist leaning in to taste it.

When he licked the tip, Oleg jerked. He’d stopped swearing, and when Kohei looked up he saw that Oleg was biting his lip, hard enough to leave marks. 

“Oleg,” he said, half-smiling, half-laughing at the freedom of it – the freedom to not only look, but touch and taste and feel; the freedom of having Oleg, because Oleg wanted him, Oleg wanted him. “Breathe.”

“I can’t,” Oleg said, complainingly, but he was laughing too, his breath coming in short hitches. “Don’t laugh at my dick.”

“I laugh at you,” Kohei said, feeling complacent, because he might be new at this but Oleg seemed to appreciate it nonetheless. He took the tip of Oleg’s dick in his mouth and sucked at it experimentally (making Oleg’s hand on his shoulder tighten precipitously), before popping off again. “Your dick is fine.”

“Not fine, _awesome_ ,” Oleg said, mock-indignantly, before putting his free hand on the back of Kohei’s head and pretending to push it back down. “Stop talking.”

“So bossy,” Kohei said in Japanese, teasingly, then switched back to English. “Bed.”

As much as he would have liked to do this on his knees, he was a twenty-seven-year-old gymnast who’d wrenched his back at the end of all-around, and this was probably going to be a lot more fun if he didn’t start wincing and grabbing his back halfway through.

Oleg stroked his fingers through Kohei’s hair, but obediently stepped back and kicked his sweatpants and boxers the rest of the way off before heading towards the nearest bed, unselfconsciously stripping his shirt over his head as he went. 

Kohei sat back on his heels and watched him. His body was perfect; short and slight and ripped, the classic all-arounder look, just like Kohei’s. Not for them the bulk of rings specialists, muscles popping out all over, looking like they could break you as soon as look at you. Just everything toned to perfection – strong, powerful, beautiful, and in Kohei’s bed.

Well, in Kenzo’s at the moment, which needed to be rectified.

Kohei stood and pulled off his own shirt, taking the time to make a show of it when he saw Oleg suck in a breath. “Yes?” he asked, grinning.

It felt like he had been smiling forever. He had thought, when he used to let himself imagine a day like today (which he had done only rarely), that lust would roar over him and leave him desperate. And yes, his dick was hard as a rock, and yes, he wanted Oleg fiercely. But the joy that throbbed in his body felt like winning gold, and how could he do anything but smile?

“はい,” Oleg said, which was probably his only word of Japanese, but it went straight to Kohei’s dick nonetheless.

Kohei wasn’t playing around anymore. He stripped the rest of the way quickly and efficiently, then fisted his dick as he sat on his bed. 

Oleg wasn’t wasting time either, and when he climbed on top of Kohei, pressing him down into the pillows, they both groaned at the feeling of skin on skin. 

“Me now,” Oleg said in Kohei’s ear, after kissing him soundly – Oleg really liked kissing, Kohei was learning – which was slightly opaque in meaning until Oleg started moving down Kohei’s body, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Kohei’s skin as he went.

Kohei closed his eyes, momentarily overwhelmed, but opened them again almost immediately, because he had to see what Oleg looked like kissing his abs, his hip, the inside of his thigh. 

He canted his legs apart, shameless, silently urging Oleg to move things along, but Oleg just laughed up at him, eyebrows dancing and the corners of his eyes crinkling. 

When he finally touched Kohei’s dick, the calluses on his hand indescribably amazing, it felt like nothing Kohei had ever been able to imagine. And when he lowered his head to thoughtfully lick along the shaft, Kohei had to hurriedly start mentally listing every F and G element in the Code of Points to keep from bringing things to an end right then and there.

But perhaps Oleg was similarly afflicted, because it wasn’t long before he moved up over Kohei again, swallowing Kohei’s groan in his own mouth as their dicks slid against each other.

Kohei held on to Oleg’s back, not gently, as Oleg rolled half on his side and propped himself up on one elbow so he could reach between their bodies and take them both in hand, jerking them off with fast, confident, overwhelming strokes. Resting his head on Oleg’s shoulder, Kohei watched the pornographic slide of their dicks together, listening to Oleg pant incomprehensible Russian in his ear, until he shuddered and came apart under Oleg’s hand.

When he swam back up to consciousness, Oleg kissed him, slow and leisurely.

Kohei had no words for what he was feeling, in English or Japanese, so he kissed Oleg back, and devoutly hoped that they had enough time before Kenzo returned to do it all again.

~//~

When Kenzo returned, bounce in his step, Kohei was on his phone.

“You look really happy,” Kenzo said, suspiciously. 

Kohei arched an eyebrow, feeling like a cat luxuriously stretching. “Do I?”

Having firmly been told to download Snapchat upon Oleg’s departure, he was now reaping the benefits. He was going to have to be careful to keep his phone locked while around the team from now on, that was for sure.

Kenzo sighed. “You’re my senior. If you tell me to mind my own business, I will.”

“Did you have a good afternoon with Aska?”

Kenzo accepted the change of subject with good grace. “Yes.”

“Be careful,” Kohei said, holding his gaze. “If I have to do all-around in Tokyo because you’ve become a tabloid celebrity and dropped out of gymnastics, my old bones are going to murder you.”

Kenzo laughed, the tension in his shoulders dissipating as he registered the acceptance in Kohei’s voice. “Your old bones would still win in Tokyo, oh great one.”

“That’s beside the point,” Kohei said, mock-loftily. He got up and clapped a hand on Kenzo’s shoulder. “It’s your job now – don’t screw it up.”

Kenzo saluted.

“If you ever need me to cover for you, I will,” Kohei added, keeping his hand on Kenzo’s shoulder. “Just don’t let me ever come in and find you naked again – my poor brain can’t take it.”

“I promise,” Kenzo said earnestly, with an embarrassed grin.

“And in return,” Kohei said, clearing a suddenly dry throat, “will you cover for me, if I need it?”

Kenzo’s eyebrows went up, and then he raised a hand to cover Kohei’s on his shoulder. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

“It’s just that I – sort of have a boyfriend now,” Kohei said, hardly able to believe the words that were coming out of his own mouth, because this had to be the most surreal day of his life, “and although I plan to be extremely discreet, there are always times where –”

He didn’t get to finish because Kenzo wrapped him up in a bear hug, joyful and tight, and Kohei closed his eyes and hung on.

~//~

_epilogue_

When Oleg won the gold medal on the parallel bars three days later, Kohei was in the crowd to watch. (Well, ostensibly for Ryohei's sake, and of course he hoped Ryohei did well, but he would've been lying to himself if he hadn’t acknowledged that his heart beat fastest when Oleg started chalking up.)

“Yusuke,” Kenzo said, in the lull between the competition and the medal ceremony, “would you like to go see some track and field with me tonight?”

“Sure,” Yusuke said. “If we get McDonald’s.”

Kenzo winked at Kohei behind Yusuke’s back, which Kohei was going to have to talk to him about later, because public winking wasn’t really a good idea.

But he wasn’t too worried about it, because he was at charity with the whole world at present. 

_Want to celebrate later, Olympic champion?_ he texted Oleg.

Oleg’s response was a snap of himself backstage, shirtless, nodding vigorously, so Kohei didn’t even have to use his translation app.

He grinned and settled back in his chair, waiting for the medallists to emerge from backstage, waiting for Oleg to get his gold and hear his anthem played.

Who knew what the next quad would bring? Perhaps, against all odds, he’d arrive in Tokyo at the top of his game, ready to try to win a third straight all-around gold. Perhaps he’d be the grizzled old veteran specialist. Perhaps he’d hang up his tape and retire. 

Whatever happened, Kohei walked away from Rio with team gold, individual gold, and an Oleg. 

And that, Kohei thought, as Oleg came into view, smiling as wide as the sun, was everything.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [(x)](http://fuck-yeah-oleg-verniaiev.tumblr.com/post/148764691236/kateua-the-top-two-gymnasts-in-rio-kohei)  
> 
> 
>   
>  I have so many notes for this fic, you guys.
> 
> First, thank you to all the wonderful nonnies on FFA for all your linguistic, cultural, and political help as I started to think about writing Kohei and Oleg, and for your encouragement along the way. This fic is possible because of you.
> 
> Some specific notes:
> 
> 1) In the universe of this fic, Kohei's wife and daughters do not exist.
> 
> 2) English is the common language of the gymnastics community. Kohei doesn't use it in public - he has a translator for media commitments - but he does chat on the floor with other gymnasts, so I'm going with "he has some basic knowledge". Oleg was taught some in school and is actively trying to learn more at present, so he's likely a bit more skilled.
> 
> 3) Although profanity isn't really a thing in Japanese, I figure Kohei is okay with swearing in English.
> 
> 4) [Aska Cambridge](https://s11.postimg.org/xgi5jm4zn/591869932.jpg) is a Japanese sprinter with Jamaican heritage who won a silver medal in Rio on the 4x100m relay team. He's 23.
> 
> 5) [Oleg's bedroom in Rio](https://s15.postimg.org/pzxune2u3/roomsinrio.png).
> 
> 6) [Kim Dae-eun](https://s14.postimg.org/o1q1cxjep/kim_dae_eun1.jpg) is a retired South Korean gymnast. He was the forgotten silver medalist in the [2004 all-around controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Tae-young).
> 
> 7) 2008 all-around, if you want to see Kim and 19-year-old Kohei in action (including the disastrous pommel horse routines).
> 
> 8) Kohei's other attractions over the years:  
> [Epke](https://s21.postimg.org/l9rgq8oef/epke_goud.jpg) [Zonderland](https://s21.postimg.org/j4wydl21j/tumblr_m866gs_Wt_Sp1raox22o1_500.jpg) (NED) [second link NSFW]  
> [Danell Levya (USA)](https://s10.postimg.org/a7av07rd5/tumblr_m80gz4m_RLr1rbu0kjo1_1280.jpg) (NSFW, from Body Issue)  
> [Chen Yibing (CHN)](https://s17.postimg.org/e0nmrduvz/U100_P200_T1_D177280_F12_DT20080809085615.jpg)  
> [Marcel Nguyen (GER)](https://s13.postimg.org/5giqzmw6f/nguyen.jpg)  
> [Marian Drăgulescu (ROU)](https://s13.postimg.org/anzp9voxz/Marian_Dragulescu_Artistic_Gymnastics_World_l_OLd.jpg)  
> [Deng Shudi (CHN)](https://s13.postimg.org/onyvpsex3/dengshudi.jpg)  
> [Ryohei Kato (JPN)](https://s12.postimg.org/cttjf4jzx/64653de68952219d25b3d3c69528c315.jpg)
> 
> 9) Kohei's [Pokemon Go saga](http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/kohei-uchimura-hit-huge-bill-playing-pokemon-go-brazil).
> 
> 10) [Free McDonald's](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/olympic-athletes-are-gorging-themselves-on-free-mcdonalds/2016/08/12/25f0eb35-5a26-4bdb-8643-123855fb0430_story.html) in the Olympic Village proves to be wildly popular with athletes, who knew?
> 
> 11) Athletes are required to wear their national gear (so Oleg is going around in bright Ukrainian sweatpants & sweatshirt all the time).
> 
> 12) The Ukrainian funding situation is complicated & long, but basically UKR has no money and it's a shitshow. They didn't even have a proper floor until very recently, and they don't have money for a high bar coach. It's bad. They lost top gymnasts to Russia & Azerbaijan last quad because of it. [Oleg talking about some of it.](http://kateua.tumblr.com/post/104877736471/oleg-verniaiev-extracts-from-the-interview-for)
> 
> 13) Ukrainian team:
> 
> [(x)](https://www.instagram.com/p/BH7Zo2WBAbO/)
> 
> From left: Vlad, Igor, Oleg, Maksim, Senya.
> 
> 14) Photographic evidence of the Ukraine team [gaming](https://s13.postimg.org/r0r7fu6mv/Cll_QVxi_XIAIRHNu.jpg).
> 
> 15) Kohei and Kenzo [talking about how they met](http://a1tumbling.tumblr.com/post/124739260241/kohei-uchimura-x-kenzo-shirai-x-mina-nagashima).
> 
> 16) Igor's vault was SCARY, but he did land it in the vault final. Not well enough to have it named after him yet (he sat down immediately), but maybe in future!
> 
> 17) Kenzo is definitely a social butterfly. (So is Oleg, for that matter.) 
> 
> 18) Kohei and Oleg being [super-cute about each other](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30zX8dVXWRQ).
> 
> \--
> 
> Thank to you everyone for reading! ♥
> 
> [(x)](http://supermura.tumblr.com/post/148858017873/gold-medalist-japans-kohei-uchimura-celebrates)  
> 


End file.
